[fr]
Google Groups trouve qu'il n'est pas raisonnable de vouloir ajouter plus d'une dizaine de personnes à la fois à une newsletter nouvellement créée.
[en]
I’ve used Google Groups to set up a newsletter for Going Solo.
Here it is, with added proof (if needed) of my hopeless lack of design sense.
When I set up the group, I did what most normal newsletter creators would do: went through my contacts to invite those who might be interested in joining. I selected 30 or so people to start with.
My action triggered a flag for review, as I might be a potential spammer:
Your request to invite X new members has been flagged for review by our staff.
In order to protect our members from unsolicited email, Google manually reviews invite requests which meet various criteria. Your request will not be reviewed unless you provide us with more information in the form below. Reviews generally take 1 – 2 business days.
Please provide an explanation for where these new members come from and why they would want to be part of your group. Note that Google takes a very dim view of Spam. The people you invite must know you and be expecting your message. If they complain, you will be banned from our service and your group will be deleted.
Great.
Well, I wrote up an explanation, saying I was setting up this newsletter so that people could stay informed about Going Solo (registration is closing soon btw), and that I was going through my address book to let people know about it.
Anything wrong with that, in your opinion? I think not, and Google obviously didn’t think there was anything wrong either, because they let my invitations go through after a few hours.
BUT.
Now, each time I invite even one single person, my request is flagged.
What a pain! I’m going to be inviting people many times a day over the next week, as I dig out e-mail addresses. And obviously, just announcing the existence of the newsletter is not enough to get people to sign up — ever heard of lower the barrier to entry? If I’m creating this newsletter, it’s because I’m finally coming to my senses (!) and realising that not everybody follows Twitter, subscribes to blogs, hangs out on Facebook or upcoming, and that good ol’ e-mail still has some good days before it when it comes to getting information out to people.
I am really annoyed at Google Groups for making this so difficult. Shouldn’t there be a way for me to get the limit “lifted” for my group, by offering proof I’m not a nasty spammer, but a businesswoman (OMG!) who is very much aware that she will very quickly use up her social capital if she spams her network with irrelevant stuff? And therefore, that I actually need to send out invites to a few hundred people?
Also, look at this form:
Don’t you think that “e-mail addresses” field invites a reasonably large number of addresses?
I went through the help, and it wasn’t very encouraging, but I did learn a few useful things:
- the “flagging limit” seems to be 10 invites at a time (talk about being unreasonably low for newsletters, bound to trigger TONS of false positives)
- you can create a Google Groups account easily even with a non-Gmail address (I think I had grief with this last year when I was struggling with Google Groups not wanting to send e-mail to the client I was setting up the discussion list for)
- messages from staff in the relevant threads seem to focus on filling in the fields, which I’ve been doing, of course
- I’m not alone in thinking the language Google uses for the warning message is a bit over the top, particularly given the number of false positives their low trigger limit is going to create (and the fact there is no warning that such a limit exists when you fill in the huge field for e-mail addresses to invite)
- I’m not alone.
- There doesn’t seem to be an official Google Groups blog.
So, please. If you have friends working on Google Groups, please draw their attention to this post and issue. It’s a bloody pain in the neck.
Oh yeah — and please sign up for the newsletter. I’m going to have trouble inviting you 
— going-solo-news-subscribe@googlegroups.com also works.
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
There are, indeed, a few kinks in the user-experience/usability of Googly things, Steph! In June, we have a small group of students going to Google London to demo how they are using Google’s products (products that are becoming more and more important to students and teachers as the weeks go by). We’ll be aiming, also, to make some constructive criticisms/suggestions for improving the interfaces and experience of using the various tools. I’ll be sure to see that we raise the issues you’ve pulled together here. Thanks — this is a very good post to be able to refer to.
There are, indeed, a few kinks in the user-experience/usability of Googly things, Steph! In June, we have a small group of students going to Google London to demo how they are using Google's products (products that are becoming more and more important to students and teachers as the weeks go by). We'll be aiming, also, to make some constructive criticisms/suggestions for improving the interfaces and experience of using the various tools. I'll be sure to see that we raise the issues you've pulled together here. Thanks — this is a very good post to be able to refer to.
These technologies are moving full steam ahead, althought not fast enough for you it sees. Great that they are free to users, istn’t it?
Good luck with your quest.
The only thing I don’t understand is why you are using Google groups for that instead of making a real standard newsletter ?
These technologies are moving full steam ahead, althought not fast enough for you it sees. Great that they are free to users, istn't it?
Good luck with your quest.
The only thing I don't understand is why you are using Google groups for that instead of making a real standard newsletter ?
Dallas: your sarcasm is not welcome here.
Marie-Aude: because it’s easier to set up? (!)
Dallas: your sarcasm is not welcome here.
Marie-Aude: because it's easier to set up? (!)
Just wanted to say I feel your pain! When I tried to add my OWN PERSONAL MANY email addresses to my OWN “testing” google-group I created (to see how it works/testing it out), it was flagged, and I gave the explanation, but within less than 5 minutes, all the emails were added.
I’m trying to decide whether to fully switch to Google Groups from Yahoogroups, and am having a hard time finding “customer reviews” re: Google Groups. But your page did show up.
Thanks for the sentiments!
Agree – this is a pain. I had managed Yahoo Groups for years and they state quite clearly how many can be joined at once. Nothing in the Google Material tells you how many until OOPs I overstepped the mark. I tried 57 and got the message above. Fingers crossed for what happens in 1-2 days. I was using a list of people who wanted to communicate on a public issue from a public meeting and had written down their emails asking for correspondence. Luckily my long letter with the invite explained exactly how we got the emails and that they had asked to be contacted and the issues were explained again and how to set up emails or web access. So hopefully Google Staff will review it favourably.. I even ended with Thank you for considering this invitation” and said how I could be contacted off list. BUT what a fluke I had written all that and taken a copy of it (ready for the next people I invite!!) – However I got an error message when I wrote in the response box to Google Staff so unsure now what the status is of the invitees. If in 2 days NOTHING has happened.. I will start again with 10 per day? and hope I don’t get your one at a time message..
THANKS FOR POSTING THIS INFO.. its nice to know others have the same problem.
Maybe in Haste I look at Yahoo Groups. Or maybe I use our business domain address which doesn’t have limits to email everyone and get them to ask to join – after setting up ask to join (how many strangers will I get then???)
I just ran into the exact same problem. We have a list of about 200 people that are contacted on a regular basis for an organization I am a part of.
Usually, somebody sends an email from their personal address giving meeting agendas and so forth.
We thought this would be an excellent use of the Google Groups. Once we added the list, our account was flagged. If we had known that this would be an issue, I think I would have skipped the Google group all together and gone for a better solution.
I cannot believe that Google is blowing this chance for larger organizations to convert their mailing lists to Google Group format.
Anyway, I hope my organization is approved soon. And, I hope your Google issues were resolved eventually as well.